“What we are living through now is a new cycle of collective dismay,” Dr. Greene said — a dismay that has grown out of frustration with the inability to control the virus, fury of the vaccinated at those who refuse to get the shots and a disillusionment that astoundingly effective vaccines haven’t yet returned life to normal.

No matter when or how pandemics dwindle, they change people’s sense of time.

“A pandemic like Covid-19 is a breach of the progressive narrative,” that medicine is advancing and diseases are being conquered, Dr. Greene said.

As the pandemic drags on, days merge into each other as time seems to blur and slow down with no forward momentum.